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Just a thought that crossed my mind while I was packing today...

When packing slider-up and attaching the slider to the rubber band on the C-line attachment point I attach the slider on both sides (so 2 rubber bands!). I feel comfortable doing so, simply because this way I keep the symmetry. A thing so important in BASE packjobs...

However I noticed that on most other gear that I've seen and packed there was only one single rubber band 'on 1 side only' present.

What about the 'symmetry' in that case? What are the reasons for doing or not doing so?

Your opinion(s) and/or advice is appreciated!

thanks,

Joris.

Symmetry is important, but you may be going too far.
Do you measure out the bite on each side with a micrometer?
When you close the rig after packing, are all those neat
little folds going to stay in the exact place you put them?
From stitching to rubberbands and S-folds,
a degree of symmetry is lost at each step.
Always pack for an on-heading opening as best you can,
but be prepared for a 180 with line twists on each jump.
Surely the moment of canopy extraction is complete chaos,
and where do chaos and symmetry meet?

I've used both methods (stowing just one side, and stowing on both sides). I can't tell the difference in the openings. In theory? Perhaps. In practice, I think Avery has it right.

Hi Joris!
I have Troll. That canopy is well known by its hard openings on the terminal deployment speed. I had a chance to feel it in Norway. Some openings were so hard! I've been watching darkness several seconds after the opening. But Jeb gave an advice to me to roll the nose tighter (like 6 or 7 rolls) and attach the slider to the C lines with the two rubber bands (so on the both sides) . It helped! There were no more hard openings since that time.

What other canopies are you comparing to, when you say the Troll has hard openings?

My experience has been that my Troll opens softer than most of my other canopies.

Hi Avery,

I agree with you to some extend. It's chaos behind our back for sure, but thinking of what happens during deployment is that the slider should still be attached after line stretch and only comes down (or out of the rubber band) just after that (this is the reason for using a rubber band to hold it up there!).

The slider comes down at the moment the canopy starts to inflate/spread, right? If then one side is more freely to spread than the other (there must be some kind of hesitation), eventhough it might be only small, this is yet another reason for the canopy to open offheading. It's like stowing your lines on a D-bag in a rubber band on 1 side and not, unevenly or in a rubber band from different size or strength on the other side, which could cause linetwists.

Is that really far fetched?

Joris.

Hi Leka,

I personally never roll my nose, just fixing the slider up there is enough, even with my vented canopy. I tried it vica versa (rolling the nose, not attaching the slider) and that slammed me every time. Possibly because the slider made its way down the lines before it actually should. Attaching it solved it for me. I also did it both, but without rolling the nose I get better heading control!

Joris.

I'm using a Vertigo slider that has a "slider gate" loop for a rubber sewn onto the middle of the back edge. I leave the slider in between the brake lines and then wrap the rubberband around them so that the slider still keeps the sides seperate... I don't understand how you would get an unsymetrical stow there - maybe you have a different kind of setup, but I wouldn't think it would make much difference.

I'll post a pic next time I pack.

I have the same rubber band on my slider, but that serves a different purpose. That's more like a 'slider-up' tailgate. The rubber band on the C-line attachment point is there to keep the slider up while the canopy is lifted from the container until it reaches line stretch. If the slider would come down in this stage you get slider down like openings as Lika was describing.

Personally, I find the prospect of adding multiple rubber bands designed to inhibit the slider coming down frightening. I don't think it is hard to find the centre of the slider and you are just as likely to attach both rubber bands at uneven distances. All my slider up has been sub-terminal so far, I don't wrap the direct control twice like it sounds many people do. I just pull enough of the slider through a black rubber band to support the weight of the slider during extraction.

Tom, I'm just a newbie. But most of the people whom I asked about Troll said it had hard openings pretty often. And I had several such openings on mine. So...
May be other jumpers never had it. But it was a problem and that stowing method helped me to fix it.
Sure you had your own problems with your gear and it's different than mine. And thanks for your article about gear because it helped me to prevent the most of possible problems.
My experience is not enought to say about the prolems which every jumper has but it was the situation.

As an answer: I jumped several CReW canopies, several skydiving canopies (like Croiselite or reserves) and MOJO.

http://www.blincmagazine.com/...hp?p=51810#post51810

Hardness of openings are very relative.

Several years ago, I did a 3 way from the Italian Terminal wall. I jumped with PG from Germany and BPS from the US. We opened, flew down and landed.

PG had pretty much only jumped Trolls. BPS and I were used to jumping other canopies. On this load, BPS jumped an Ace, and PG and I were jumping Trolls.

When we landed PG ran over and exclaimed, "wow, we all had such hard openings!" BPS and I had been thinking "wow, those Trolls sure opened soft."

I guess what I'm saying is that most of the folks I've heard talking about hard openings on the Troll have very little experience jumping other canopies--even though sometimes they have hundreds of jumps on Trolls.

In BASE, we have a great tendency to describe our personal experience in absolutes. We hear people who have only ever jumped one type of canopy saying that it's the "best", when what they really mean is that it's the "best I've jumped". In fact, it's pretty much the only thing they've jumped. Most of the people I've heard describing hard openings on the Troll fall into this category (when asked further about their experience on other canopies)--i.e. that the vast majority of their jumps have been on the Troll.